Алистер Маклин - Floodgate

Still with her hands linked behind his neck she leaned back and looked at him. ‘You will?’

‘Just said so. Your eyes are funny. About to weep salt tears for the gallant Lieutenant?’

‘I was thinking about it.’ She smiled. ‘I’ve changed my mind. I’ll think about the lunch menu instead.’

Annemarie came in. She was wearing a bathrobe that was much too large for her and a towel wound around her presumably still very wet hair. She smiled and said: ‘It’s difficult to move around this house without interrupting private conversations. Sorry I look such a fright.’

‘You can frighten me at any time,’ van Effen said cheerfully. ‘She really isn’t too bad looking, is she, Julie?’

‘She’s the most beautiful girl you ’ ve ever seen.’

‘In my profession you don’t get to see many girls, beautiful or otherwise.’ He looked at Julie consideringly. ‘You’re not too bad yourself. But, then, I’m used to your face. It’s a toss-up. And who am I to quibble in – or at – such company?’

‘It pleases the Lieutenant to be carefree and light-hearted, Julie,’ Annemarie said acidly. ‘He was anything but this morning. What have you done to him?’

‘We’ve been conducting a mutual admiration party,’ van Effen said.

‘No, we haven’t. And I haven’t been appealing to his better nature either – I wouldn’t know where to look for that. I think maybe we’re slightly unfair to the poor man. Both you and I, it seems, have been full of bad omens and predicting all sorts of awful things that are going to happen to him. He was just suffering from some gloom and despondency, that’s all.’

‘He wasn’t the only one,’ Annemarie said. ‘Your cloud seems to have lifted a bit, too.’

‘You’re choking me,’ van Effen said.

‘Ah!’ She unclasped her hands. ‘Peter says he isn’t going to do anything brave today. Just going to the Hunter’s Horn, meeting whoever is there, make arrangements for another meeting and then leave. Going to find out what their plans for him are. Thing is, he’s going directly there – where he’ll be guarded by heaven knows how many armed detectives – and coming directly back again.’

Annemarie smiled, her relief as obvious as Julie’s. ‘That is good.’ The smile slowly vanished. ‘How do you know he’ll keep his word?’

‘A police officer’s word –’ van Effen began.

‘Because he’s coming back at one o’clock. For lunch. Extra special. French wines. He knows what I’m like if anyone is late for my meals, far less misses them. Besides, I’d never cook for him again.’

‘Banned for life? No, not that. I’ll be back. Guaranteed.’

Annemarie said: ‘Is he coming for us or for the lunch?’

‘The lunch, of course. Us he can see any time.’

‘Not or – and,’ van Effen said. ‘A peaceful hour. I may well be called upon to attend to something about two o’clock. The FFF, I mean.’

‘I thought,’ Annemarie said, ‘that they weren’t going to do anything until some undisclosed time tomorrow.’

‘I was about to tell you. I was interrupted.’

Julie said: ‘Somebody interrupted you ?’

‘She did. She was either being fey, like you, or getting on to me about something or other.’

‘What?’ Annemarie said.

‘How can one remember one instance out of so many? However. The FFF promise to entertain us at two o’clock this afternoon. Same place on the North Holland canal north of Alkmaar as promised this morning – they say the mines have been planted since yesterday, that they elected not to fire them and defy us to find them – and also the Hagestein sluice.’

‘The what?’ Julie said.

‘A sluice. Technically, I believe, a regulable weir. Concrete structure to control the flow of water. South of Utrecht, on the lower Rhine. They may attack one or the other, they say, or both, or neither. The old uncertainty principle. Well, time to dress for my appointment.’

He squeezed his sister’s shoulders, kissed her, did the same to an astonished Annemarie, said: ‘Someone has to uphold the law,’ and left.

Julie looked at the closed door and shook her head. ‘There are times, I feel, when someone should pass a law against him.’

Van Effen, attired as he had been for his visit the previous afternoon, parked his car – not the Peugeot – in a side street three blocks away from the Hunter’s Horn and made his way to the back entrance of the restaurant. As the Hunter’s Horn was situated in a far from salubrious area this door was kept permanently locked. Van Effen had the key. He entered, passed into the semi-darkness of the passageway beyond and had just relocked the door when something hard jabbed with painful force into the small of his back.

‘Don’t move.’

Van Effen didn’t move. He said: ‘Who is it?’

‘Police.’

‘You have a name?’

‘Raise your hands.’ A torch nicked on behind him. ‘Jan, see if he has a gun.’

Hands fumbled at his jacket and he felt his shoulder-holstered gun being removed. Van Effen said: ‘So. My hands are up. My gun is gone. May I turn round?’

‘Very well.’ Van Effen turned. ‘Is that the way, Sergeant Koenis, to teach your men to search for weapons?’ He lowered his hands and hitched up his trousers. There was an ankle holster, each with its Lilliput, attached to each leg. ‘Put on the overhead light.’

The light came on. The man with the gun said: ‘Good God. Lieutenant van Effen. Sorry about that, sir.’

‘Just as long as you didn’t shoot me full of holes, Sergeant. Nothing to be sorry for. Semi-dark, and, with my back to you, my trademarks, scar and black glove, weren’t visible. And, of course, you weren’t expecting me to enter this way. I’m just glad to see that you and your men are so on the alert.’

‘I didn’t even recognize your voice.’

‘Cheek padding. I must admit it does alter the voice somewhat. How many men do you have here, Sergeant?’

‘Five, sir. Two with machine pistols.’

‘And in the street outside?’

‘Another five. Behind first-floor windows. Another two machine pistols.’

‘Very gratifying. To see that the Colonel places so high a value on his Lieutenant.’ He turned to the young policeman who held the gun in his hand. ‘Do you think I could have my property back?’

‘Yes, sir. Sorry, sir. Of course.’ The policeman was highly embarrassed. ‘I won’t make that mistake again.’

‘I know you won’t. Go and ask Henri if he’ll come here – Henri’s the sad-looking man behind the bar.’

When Henri appeared, lugubrious as ever, he said: ‘I hear you’ve been held at gunpoint, Peter. Must have been a rather unusual experience for you. My fault. I forgot to tell the Sergeant that you had your own key. Never expected you to come that way.’

‘No harm. Customers. How many?’

‘Three only. And, yes, they’re regulars. Any more come in when you and your visitors are talking and I’ll keep them well away. No one will be able to hear a word you say.’

‘Except you, of course.’

Henri almost smiled. ‘Except me. The gentleman who was here said they wouldn’t find the microphone even if they looked for it. He asked me if I could find it and I couldn’t. Not in my own bar. He said he thought it was highly unlikely that they would look anyway.’

‘I think so too. Switch on the recorder in the office as soon as they come through the door. I shall be off now and make a respectable entrance through the front door. They’ve probably got someone watching.’

Van Effen was sitting in the booth nearest the door when the three men entered, Agnelli in the lead. Van Effen stood and shook hands with Agnelli, who seemed no less genial and friendly than he had on the previous occasion.